Shotgun accepting entries for 'Pipeline Awards'

LOS ANGELES — Shotgun Software is now accepting entries for its annual Pipeline Awards. Now in its fifth year, the Pipeline Awards honor outstanding tools and individuals that make pipelines more manageable for studios of all sizes. In addition to the Pipeline Shotty Awards, recognizing top pipeline tools, and the Pipeline Hero Awards, for standout individuals, this year introduces a new category: Pipeline Trick Shots, which recognizes the use of Shotgun in unusual ways. Winners will be announced during this year’s SIGGRAPH Conference, taking place August 12th to 16th in Vancouver.

Nominations should be submitted online by July 6th for consideration. Eligible winners may use technologies other than Shotgun. Tools may include solutions in development, integration, engineering, or usage. Pipeline heroes not only improve their own studios, but also regularly share best practices and tools with the wider industry, and Shotgun trick shots showcase amazing things achieved in Shotgun, whether or not they have any practical production application.

Last year’s awards went to DreamWorks Animation for the SWATV Credits Tool designed to streamline credits by tracking and spell checking names and titles of thousands of people across the organization; Visual Concepts for the NBA 2K17 Facial Animation Pipeline, which automates tasks like tracking video, solving data, format conversion, review and approval handling thousands of daily tasks; and Psyop for Cryptomatte, a tool that automatically creates ID mattes using information already available at render time including names, object namespaces and material names.